Banning repeat offenders

Is it just me, or are more people getting sick and tired of these people that have no imagination when creating a toon?

last week.. Wednesday was my 1st day in game that week, i made a new staff fighting toon, swept the street to get a quick level. I go to Miss Lib, and who do i see? a toon names SnakeEyez, dressed as Snake-Eyes, dual Blade power set and even a bio stating he was from a top secret military unit.
All i said was: "Pleased to meet you mister soon to be known as Generic 847 924 6722, because if someone reports you, that will be your new name." He went off on me that i should leave him alone, because i had his toon Gen'd a few days prior. A whole discussion about copyright infringement started with people giving their two cents.
10 minutes later, a toon named Generic ### ### #### starts yelling at me that i should get lost because i got his toon Gen'd, his second in a few days. Again, a whole altercation followed, and he said he was going to report me for harassment. Only thing i said: : "Good luck."

Now, obviously if he has two toons that got Gen'd in a few days, this player has no imagination. His reaction, albeit a little, just a little, understanding, was directed at the wrong person. I never reported him prior, or even after the incident, all i did was laugh.

Would it be a smart policy to not only protect the game, but also the players from these type of people that could potentially hurt the game, but also drive people away because of the repeat offender's attitude because he get's angry about the fact his toons get Gen'd.
One way i see is a simple ban for a period after your 3rd Generic in a set amount of time.

Now i hear people say: "hey, i have been playing 7 years, and i had 3 toons Gen'd in that period, i should not get banned!" And i agree.
But i do not agree with the fact that people get to oust their frustrations after a 2nd Gen'd toon in less than 1 week, and this has to stop.

People should get banned for being a repeat offender in a short amount of time. These people will add nothing new to the table, and will only cause harm to the game in the long run, and the player base.
As i stated, i got his full wrath, because he thought i got two of his toons Gen'd. If he went off on a newer player, that new player might just quit the game in order to not deal with these types of people, where as i merely laughed in his face because i knew i did nothing wrong.

Anyone who has any suggestions or feedback regarding this?

Permabanning people is a big step I'd rather reserve for serious offenses such as account hacks of other people or gold spam. That said, I'd have no problem with the CS team handing out temp-bans of the three-day and one-week variety for repeat offenders.

I've also felt that we need a system of "probation." If an account incurs a ban, put it on probation. If the account keeps scoring violations, then after a certain point, go ahead and ban it. And I don't mean just for costume-related violations. Intentional griefing, racist hate-mongering, stalking other players and so forth, have those add up such that they aren't quickly forgotten.

I don't want NCsoft getting sued like Cryptic did over the Marvel incident, and to avoid this, they need to be seen as extending every effort they can to combat this. People shouldn't be let off with a slap on the wrist if they keep doing this over and over again.

The really sad thing is that a lot of people really don't have any imagination. I've spoken about the game to a number of people I know, and most of them proceed to ask me "OK, so can I play Iron Man in there?" and get deflated when I say that, no, you can't. I feel some kind of warning needs to exist to catch people's attention at character creation that "You are not allowed to create replicas of any trademarked characters." Putting a vague refusal to accept a trademark name is not enough. Tell the player what he's doing wrong so he doesn't find a way to do it anyway and feign ignorance anyway. I'd say give players a single "warning" violation of copyright where it's just a genericed character, but have the follow-up be an actual temp-ban.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

While I am unsure about your actual suggestion, I do feel that folks really need to stop ripping off characters and parading around as if nothing is up. I casually mentioned to a dude dressed in red and yellow armor named Iron-Dude or something similar that he might be breaking a rule with his character. He lol-ed at me and starting spamming me with mindless chat thereafter and generally making it clear that he was like 11, so I left him alone... someone else can report him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zybron1 So, your suggestion is to guarantee that a player of the game is lost because that player *might* upset another and cause them to leave. /unsigned

No, he is suggesting that people who are bound and determined to not follow the rules get a ban to hopefully teach them a lesson AND prevent folks who might comment from getting a tirade.

I would imagine that first thing is more important, and the rest of his post is somewhat in the throes of anger at being cussed out for nothing. Though I could be wrong.

I'm kind of against the idea of permabans for this, but it's worth mentioning that attempting to argue with such players over it is almost never productive. Report the character and let a GM do their job.

Wait, were you just discussing this guy last night in the Help channel? The character name that got banned and the whole theme sound really familiar.

I don't know if it was the same guy or not, but I know at a ship raid we had someone (also in help) talking about getting genericed a week or two (I think) ago - he'd made a blatant Hulk ripoff (name and look - Big Hulk or something,) and was on another and talking about making a third, though I *think* the /hc folks convinced him to delete the character and not do it again.

I don't know what they're told in the email they (presumably) get when they get generic'd, but if they're given the information and they intentionally keep making the characters at *that* sort of rate, they probably *are* at least temp-banned or otherwise dealt with. (Versus "I made one a year ago, made one now to screw around and it got hit.")

Basically, we don't know what happens at what limits. This could already be in place. PM Z if you're curious, he can probably tell you (if you keep it purely theoretical instead of saying "Yeah, this guy did this, what did you do to him," since that would basically be "commenting on moderator/GM actions" as well as giving info about another player - neither of which would fly.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

No! I'm against it.

If they put something like that in place, I might just get tempted to start reporting people on the smallest of slights, just to see if they enforce it.

Red, White and Blue colo scheme Shield user? Captain America rip-off! Red, White and Blue Martial Arts or Street Justice paired with INV/WP/Regen/SR, Captain America rip off!

After having been genericed for having a character with an original name but had similar colors (though not the same outfit) as Super Girl, I just think it's a bad idea to go perma banning anyone, because I think GMs have a tendency to go over board on some, while obvious other ones to some go unnoticed.

Wouldn't have been so bad, but the name was snatched up when they genericed me too, and they werent about to take the name away from the new person.

This always amazes me how people let someone else's character's costumes or names affect their gaming experience. Who cares? If it bothers you, report them and move on, otherwise let it go, sheesh.

I should think that new players would not be spending their time pointing out EULA violations and laughing in people's faces for getting their toons genericed. And if they were, they're probably also the type of people who'd enjoy the angry response.

As for the legal side, the EULA already states that accounts can be banned for IP violations. One presumes that the Paragon lawyers are satisfied with the current policies enforced by GMs.

Why would you want to ban the Repeat Offenders network of players?

Sure, you may not like Pinball Wizards, Brain Damage, Stone Cold, Faithful Fans of Fallout or any of the other SG's that are part of the RO network, but they've done nothing to be banned for.





Oh wait.


Fuhgeddaboutit.

it's impossible to re-create a trademark character in this game with any verisimilitude (well, except for The Hulk), the cowardice of NC caving in the face of Marvel's frivolous lawsuit notwithstanding.

Also, seeing someone's cleverly constructed homage character in-game is much preferable to yet another example of someone hitting 'random' and christening it with their IM screen name.


Worst suggestion I've seen in a coon's age.

I agree with Forbin and Sam .... In 6 and a half years I have managed to get one character gen'd because I chose a name that was an exact match but close enough to a hero from Comic book that I wasn't even aware existed. I see no reason if some one repeatedly does this over and over, all but obviously deliberately, get some form of punishment. To start I'd say 3 days or a week banned would be plenty. If it continued after that then possibly permanent. No one wants to see the game get sued and wind up closing down completely becasue some nut can't come up with an original name or simply enjoys breaking the rules.

hmmmmm i'm for a no.

i think the Mods do a good job.

and there is a big difference between strict copyright infringement and homage. and like nethergoat said, it is almost impossible to re-create a copyrighted character exactly.

i have a couple of characters [out of my zillion] inspired by, and potentially named similar to some big name characters, yet all of mine have different costumes, different stories, and play quite differently. I would be turned off from the game entirely if someone reported my character Super Wonder Boy because he was wearing blue briefs and silver cuffs. he is a Paragon City Resident who, inspired by his favorite comicbooks and newfound mutations, decided to protect the city and show off his great body. XD to protect myself i always put in my bio... if i can said character can even remotely be called 'homage'... "X claims to be no one but X, and any resemblance to copyrighted characters is strictly coincidence." and then start my bio. too bad few people read bios anyway, but it's somethin'. i dont want to lose my ice/storm corruptor because his tan skin looks african american and is therefore "OMG A MALE STORM!" no, he's not. he's a latino teacher and looks good in a black c catsuit.




also, i've seen lots of characters who look like they are trying to imitate known copyrighted characters, but when i inquire i've been wrong and it's been purely coincidence.

that's the beauty of our character creation system, you can make almost anything. unfortunately, the several other copyrighted universes have also made just about everything. our game is collectively based off of those universes. it's going to happen intentionally or not.

this rule would suck.

the few folks who make every character an attempt to re-create some other character, have really zero effect on my gameplay. in fact, they give it a variety. this whole game is about escape and fantasy, and the fact that their character is interacting with mine makes for a whole new unique gameplay experience.


i MUCH prefer:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow Permabanning people is a big step I'd rather reserve for serious offenses such as account hacks of other people or gold spam. That said, I'd have no problem with the CS team handing out temp-bans of the three-day and one-week variety for repeat offenders. I've also felt that we need a system of "probation." If an account incurs a ban, put it on probation. If the account keeps scoring violations, then after a certain point, go ahead and ban it. And I don't mean just for costume-related violations. Intentional griefing, racist hate-mongering, stalking other players and so forth, have those add up such that they aren't quickly forgotten.

im less bothered by costumes of other characters [and frankly there are plenty of AWFUL costumes], it's the repeat offenders of 'intentional griefing, offensive hate-mongering, stalking other players and so forth' that i wish was more policed. but thank goodness we do have a great, self-policing community.

I, myself, am not all that bothered by ripoff characters, honestly. I consider them to be low-borw, but that's neither here nor there. What concerns me is some people's wanton disregard for rules who claim that just because they consider a rule to be "stupid," it shouldn't apply to them. I have a teaching profession, so that might be colouring my perception more than a little, but I see no circumstances where I will put up with this.

Make a mistake, get a slap on the wrist, that's fine. It happens to everybody. But I can't condone mocking the rules and doing whatever you like. The GMs' authority SHOULD be absolute, as far as I'm concerned.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

My entire coalition shuddered at the title of this thread.

Nice to see people on both sides on the fence regarding this issue.

Let me clear a few things.

I do not want people perma banned for 3 Gen'd toons in a short amount of time, maybe i should have used the term suspension.

I also understand that there is a difference between ripp-off toons and homage toons, and i do not know how the Generic process works, but there has to be a difference between them regarding punishments.

Rip-off toons know they will eventually get generic'd, while homage toons have much less chance of this happening.

That said, i have reported a few toons for violations, mostly because they look, are named, have the bio, and have the powers. I don't report people for just a name, and the amount i reported is countable on one hand. The thing is, when i reported a Simpsons rip-off toon that had all these things, even weeks after i reported him he was still in game, this just made me wonder how much CS really cares.

I do not know if accounts are being flagged atm for a violation, and if so, how flags are being seen and such.

I do would like to comment about a reply:
Someone mentioned Probation after being Gen'd, and i like that idea.

Gotta say "NO!" to this one.

Bad Dark Energon, that's just being mean! No biscuit for you.